The Never King Review

by Nikki St. Crowe

Rating: 2/5

The stories were all wrong — Hook was never the villain.

For two centuries, all of the Darling women have disappeared on their 18th birthday. Sometimes they’re gone for only a day, some for a week or a month. But they always return broken.

Now, on the afternoon of my 18th birthday, my mother is running around the house making sure all the windows are barred and the doors locked.

But it’s pointless.

Because when night falls, he comes for me. And this time, the Never King and the Lost Boys aren’t willing to let me go.

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Content Warning: Reverse Harem, Incest, Aggressive Rape-Like Sex

I was so excited to pick this one up. I loved the premise of a dark, erotic Peter Pan retelling. But this fell so flat in multiple ways for me. 

We follow Winnie, who’s a Darling, and has been told her entire life that Darling women are kidnapped by Peter Pan on their 18th birthday. And despite trying, are never truly able to explain why. Each of them always returns broken and descends into madness because of what they endure. Winnie is so desensitized to it that when she’s finally kidnapped, she welcomes it. 

Sounds interesting? I thought so too.

What I expected was a dark fantasy retelling with some spice mixed in. What I got was a retelling where Peter kidnaps a Darling descendant, and he and the lost boys take turns fucking her.

Her attitude towards being kidnapped made for a boring MC to follow for me. And once she meets Peter Pan and the lost boys, they’re all so enticed by her, wanting to seduce her, for no real reason at all. It just felt weird and gross.

The story is already on the shorter side, being less than 200 pages, which makes for a very quick read. Especially with the lack of plot. We see no real character development. A majority of the book involves one or more of the characters having sex with Darling, and occasionally, on the edge of being practically rape, with the roughness and not being fully consensual. One particular sex scene gave me a serious ick. 

This book was so hyped. So I was very disappointed, I didn’t enjoy this more. I think I would have if we had gotten more of the plot and less sex. The sex had no purpose in the plot. And there’s no real romance between any of the characters. It was just sex.